On 18/02/2008, Minh Lê Ngọc <cumeo89(a)gmail.com> wrote: Wikitext is designed to be much easier to use than XML. Even if it's not much easier to write, it's much easier to read, and therefore much easier to edit.

On 18/02/2008, Daniel Kinzler <daniel(a)brightbyte.de> wrote: That's what I mean by "no WYSIWYG system is likely to be as powerful as wikitext".

On 2/20/08, Minh Lê Ngọc <cumeo89(a)gmail.com> wrote: If wikitext is a programming language, god help us. It's supposed to be a simple, intuitive replacement for complex languages like HTML. Which is to say, that if there is a WYSIWYG editor, there should be a way of accessing the underlying XML directly. Heh. Replacing the wikitext parser with a better wikitext parser is a pretty significant change. Replacing it with an XML parser...wow. You aim big. I think realistically the problem is that open source works relatively well for language compilers. People can add features simply by extending syntax etc, and it works. However, who amongst us has the ability to really implement and maintain a high quality WYSIWYG editor? It's hard, really hard. And a WYSIWYG editor with editable syntax, now you're talking about a tool like frontpage, dreamweaver etc. This is not a task for a couple of full time developers and a bunch of hobbyists. Steve

On 2/20/08, Daniel Kinzler <daniel(a)brightbyte.de> wrote: What's hard about the grammar exactly? It's been pretty slow, mostly because of difficulties with ANTLR, but I don't think there are any more major difficulties in the wikitext grammar exactly. Most of the issues I've raised on this list seem like they're big ("zomg is that asterisk a list or a literal!") but they're ambiguous in precious few actual real examples. Time to take this grammar and do something with it. Steve

On 2/21/08, Jay R. Ashworth &lt;jra(a)baylink.com&gt; wrote: Ok. I've actually done a bit of that, but I guess I should ramp up the scale. It can be hard to detect pukage without actually generating XHTML and comparing it, though. Generally, though, the answer is "not often". Flip through some random wikitext. You'll find that a very small number of rules amount for the vast majority of actual use. Though that may change once I have to contend with the body of templates. People don't use tables much. They don't use HTML tags or entities much. They almost never use magic links (especially PMID - wtf is that about it). They almost never use horizontal rules, HTML comments and rarely even extensions like <ref> Steve

On 2/21/08, Jay R. Ashworth &lt;jra(a)baylink.com&gt; wrote: Ah, yes. Well, it really should be pretty easy to produce some stats like "in this corpus, there are 850 inline links, 560 images, 227 bullet list items" etc. It will be harder to detect subtle things like "things which closely resemble, but aren't, inline images" or "external links wrapped in double square brackets by some moron". Steve

You want an XML based language for describing the formatting of webpages? Basically, you're suggesting we switch to XHTML (with more some features removed and a few added). XHTML is much harder to learn and use than wikitext, even for experienced users.

On Wed, 2008-02-20 at 13:25 +0100, Daniel Kinzler wrote: For the average user I believe Wikitext to be the easiest to learn, however I am not an expert on the technical aspects and ressources used by using Wikitext. On the subject of creating a WYSIWYG editor, I don't believe this is the best solution. Instead, the current editor could be expanded to include forms similar to many popular Blog softwares, e.g. Wordpress. For example, if a user wants to include an image this is quite easy for an experienced user, however for a beginner it can be quite complicated. If instead a dialog would appear asking for various parameters, for example size, thumb, description and alignment, this would make it a lot more simpler - no matter if the result get's displayed as Wikitext or WYSIWYG. Ian [[User:Poeloq]] --- Ian A Holton Blog: http://www.ianholton.net

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 10:34:38AM +0000, Thomas Dalton wrote: No, he suggests giving up the ability/necessity to use a text format as users at all, going solely to a wysiayg, excuse me, wysiwyg editor. Cause I'll love that a lot on my blackberry. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra(a)baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24 St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274 Those who cast the vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything. -- (Joseph Stalin)

I know that a lot of wikitext has been written but I think the problem is: which work is harder, complete wikitext and build wysiwyg or build xml-based markup, convert to it and build wysiwyg upon it. I think convert to xml is not too difficult because almost of wikitext constructs have already been converted to html day after day. We only have to convert some like inclusion, reference, parser function... And build a wysiwyg editor with xml-like markup is much easier than one with wikitext. 2008/2/19, Platonides &lt;platonides(a)gmail.com&gt;om>:

Hah, you actually think that the WikiText conversion to XHTML is a good conversion to use as a base for a XML version. I suggest you actually look over the source of a parsed page before you make insane assumptions like that. From [[Wikipedia:Talk:Main Page]] Errors in /In the news/ * The Wikileaks entry says it is "offline", but this is not true. As our Wikileaks <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks> article says, it is still online at its IP address. --Jedravent <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jedravent> (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jedravent>) 16:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC) I just tried the links. Wikileaks.org is still off-line, but Wikileaks.be (a mirror site?) is accessible. If you think the wrong link has been placed on the Wikileaks <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks> article, please discuss this at Talk:Wikileaks <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikileaks>. Thanks. --PFHLai <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PFHLai> (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:PFHLai>) 17:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC) Still, Wikileaks is not "offline", as it can still be accessed. --Jedravent <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jedravent> (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jedravent>) 18:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC) I agree, the headline is misleading. Wikileaks is not offline. Their previous primary domain name, wikileaks.org is no longer available by court order. If we are going to keep this, we need to explain the situation without misleading people Nil Einne <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nil_Einne> (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nil_Einne>) 20:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC) Wikileaks entry should say "the Wikileaks.org site is unavailable, however the site remains online an can be reached via its mirrors.Thalia42 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Thalia42&action=edit> (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Thalia42>) 20:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC) What's the output? <h2><span class="editsection">[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Main_Page/Errors&amp;action=edit&amp;section=T-2" title="Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors">edit</a>]</span> <span class="mw-headline">Errors in the summary of <i>Today's featured article</i> on the Main Page</span></h2> <p><a name="Errors_in_In_the_news" id="Errors_in_In_the_news"></a></p> <h2><span class="editsection">[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Main_Page/Errors&amp;action=edit&amp;section=T-3" title="Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors">edit</a>]</span> <span class="mw-headline">Errors in <i>In the news</i></span></h2> <ul> <li>The Wikileaks entry says it is "offline", but this is not true. As our <a href="/wiki/Wikileaks" title="Wikileaks">Wikileaks</a> article says, it is still online at its IP address. --<a href="/wiki/User:Jedravent" title="User:Jedravent">Jedravent</a> (<a href="/wiki/User_talk:Jedravent" title="User talk:Jedravent">talk</a>) 16:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)</li> </ul> <dl> <dd>I just tried the links. Wikileaks.org is still off-line, but Wikileaks.be (a mirror site?) is accessible. If you think the wrong link has been placed on the <a href="/wiki/Wikileaks" title="Wikileaks">Wikileaks</a> article, please discuss this at <a href="/wiki/Talk:Wikileaks" title="Talk:Wikileaks">Talk:Wikileaks</a>. Thanks. --<a href="/wiki/User:PFHLai" title="User:PFHLai">PFHLai</a> (<a href="/wiki/User_talk:PFHLai" title="User talk:PFHLai">talk</a>) 17:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC) <dl> <dd>Still, Wikileaks is not "offline", as it can still be accessed. --<a href="/wiki/User:Jedravent" title="User:Jedravent">Jedravent</a> (<a href="/wiki/User_talk:Jedravent" title="User talk:Jedravent">talk</a>) 18:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC) <dl> <dd>I agree, the headline is misleading. Wikileaks is not offline. Their previous primary domain name, wikileaks.org is no longer available by court order. If we are going to keep this, we need to explain the situation without misleading people <a href="/wiki/User:Nil_Einne" title="User:Nil Einne">Nil Einne</a> (<a href="/wiki/User_talk:Nil_Einne" title="User talk:Nil Einne">talk</a>) 20:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)</dd> </dl> </dd> </dl> </dd> </dl> <dl> <dd>Wikileaks entry should say "the Wikileaks.org site is unavailable, however the site remains online an can be reached via its mirrors.<a href="/w/index.php?title=User:Thalia42&amp;action=edit" class="new" title="User:Thalia42">Thalia42</a> (<a href="/wiki/User_talk:Thalia42" title="User talk:Thalia42">talk</a>) 20:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)</dd> </dl> : is both for indentation, and for definitions. Take this: ;Foo: A commonly used expression used in technical discussions to refer to an example. ;Bar: Another commonly used expression used in technical discussions which often accommodates Foo. And this: Here's my first comment, so who's making the second? ~~~~ :I am, who's making the third? ~~~~ ::That would be me. ::Did you know we even like to spread comments over multiple lines? ~~~~ :Ya, we sometimes drop backwards in our indentation to! ~~~~ ::You guys do know that you're actually using definition lists to create your indentation, right? ~~~~ :::Er, what's a definition list? ~~~~ ::::Markup used in HTML to create a list of word and definition pairs. ~~~~ :::::Eh, I thought we were using WikiText, not HTML? ~~~~ Now... parse that through the parser, and tell me what is a set of word/definition pairs, and what is indentation? No sane parser can do something like that. And if you want anything remotely sane for XML editing, which isn't sane, you'll need to distinguish between the two. Oh ya... <p>This is a paragraph.</p> <p>This is another paragraph.</p> <p>Now tell me, who used double lines to create those paragraphs. And who actually used the <p/> tag?</p> <p>Honestly, I don't want to need to use a &lt;p/&gt; when writing markup every time I want a new paragraph.</p> <p>And using a &amp;lt;p/&amp;gt; to describe the syntax is absolutely disturbing.</p> Now... Tell me who is more insane? The person trying to create a XML language for editing. Or the person who is driven up the wall by trying to stare at the mangled <>'s inside their "document" that is supposed to be something they can edit. And don't tell me that it'll all be fixed by a WYSIWYG editor which will let people edit without seeing the tags. That's bull because there are plenty of people around who don't have JavaScript enabled, don't have a good enough browser to handle it, can't access a computer with a browser better than IE for Mac, are running IE 5.5, or are editing using a mobile browser which will never be able to handle WYSIWYG. Honestly tell me you can handle the death threats you'll get by dropping support for a fair fraction of MediaWiki end users and forcing them into a black hole to try and edit... ~Daniel Friesen(Dantman) of: -The Gaiapedia (http://gaia.wikia.com) -Wikia ACG on Wikia.com (http://wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_ACG) -and Wiki-Tools.com (http://wiki-tools.com) David Gerard wrote:

You stated "I think convert to xml is not too difficult because almost of wikitext constructs have already been converted to html day after day." However, converting WikiText to XML and converting it to XHTML meant only for display are completely different things. Now covering all the possible bases that could be made on that I can derive... There's no way to convert WikiText directly into XML in the way you imply without a proper grammar. Which if created, will already void the point of converting over. And you can't use the converted XHTML to come up with a good way of representing the data inputed. Next in line, is the notion of ditching WikiText without converting it. Honestly, is that even sane... There are over ... articles on Wikipedia alone. Not to mention the other large sites like Wikia. Ditching a language used everywhere like that, is like removing all definition of the Chinese language and telling them that Chinese can no longer be used. You get riots... Now if you say that those sites can stick with WikiText. Then there's little point in creating a new language, because there's little point in a new parser language if Wikipedia is not using it. That's like telling the WikiMedia Foundation to cut off Wikipedia's upgrades because it's getting to old. Then there's the mention of a XML equivalent of WikiText. You mean, replace things like: :Comment With: <indent>Comment</indent> Or: <dl>Comment</dl> I hardly see how that is any different, as a simple regex will easily match both. Any further, and we're doing it in a way which we can't convert existing WikiText into tags... And then we're right back at the notion of ditching WikiText without converting it, which as I've already explained is insane. Then there's the notion of XML structures being cleaner, easier to parse, and not to difficult to read. And half that is bull. Sure, a XML language is good for a parser. But cleaner... That's starting to push it. And not to difficult to read... That's just crap. There's no way a pile of <>'s all over the text is anywhere near easy to read, and to someone who doesn't even understand XML that's just bull. WikiText was designed to be able to be editable by nearly anyone. An XML language will never be clean enough for the average person to edit. And like I said, don't state any crap about them using WYSIWYG. There are plenty of users who can't use a WYSIWYG editor and will need to be able to edit plain text. And a XML based language isn't anywhere near friendly for them. ~Daniel Friesen(Dantman) of: -The Gaiapedia (http://gaia.wikia.com) -Wikia ACG on Wikia.com (http://wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_ACG) -and Wiki-Tools.com (http://wiki-tools.com) Minh Lê Ngo.c wrote:

On 21/02/2008, DanTMan &lt;dan_the_man(a)telus.net&gt; wrote: The actual state of things is: 1. Wikitext is literally defined as "whatever the present software does." This is bad. 2. There have been several attempts to write a grammar. The latest one is looking promising for completeness (though ANTLR is slow and buggy). 3. A replacement grammar can be used for third-party implementations (WYSIWYG, XML, etc) with perfect fidelity. 4. Any replacement grammar will only replace the present implementation if it (a) covers present behaviour sufficiently (b) is fast enough. Minh Lê Ngọc's reasoning is quite correct, but we need a replacement that is (a) sufficiently complete (whatever "sufficient" is) (b) works *better* than the present one. Then we can keep wikitext in all its kludgy glory *and* do XML versions and good WYSIWYG editors that aren't just WYSIAYG and so forth. Current status of ANTLR-based parser: somewhere between promising vapourware and unreleased early alpha. - d.

2008/2/22, Steve Bennett &lt;stevagewp(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: If you're about to complete Wikitext grammar, so I have nothing to say any more. I just worried that we use too much of time in completing it. However I'll still build my own implementation of MW use XML. Hope people will enjoy it.

On 2/22/08, Platonides &lt;platonides(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: How? Steve

2008/2/21, DanTMan &lt;dan_the_man(a)telus.net&gt;et>: dirtier.

On Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 01:33:29AM +0700, Minh L? Ng???c wrote: Installed Base. In the abstract you may be correct. But Mediawiki *must* support Wikipedia, and converting 2 million plus articles simply isn't going to happen -- I gave the idea up about 8 months back up *the mailing list archive*, which I suggest you explore; this has already been hashed out. IE: PINCH! Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra(a)baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24 St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274 Those who cast the vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything. -- (Joseph Stalin)