[Mediawiki-l] Apple's Wiki Server brings WYSIWYG to wiki

[MHart]

>> * page layout. urge the new user not to take any value to
the layout. Use a "simple editor" way of life: titles are
some word on one line, paragraph breaks are two carriage
return, period. others will do the final layout, _this is
collaborative effort_ <<

You've already lost these people when you say "titles are some word on a 
line". No it isn't. A title is a Title, and they want to make a Title look 
like it would look in a document line word. I select the font size and make 
it bold and it's a Title. == Title == doesn't make sense to these people. 
Sure, maybe after they've done it a few times. Problem is, that 50% I'm 
talking about will never do it when it looks like that.

>> * you need a table: open mozilla composer (or NVu), build

What's mozilla? What's NVu? What does <table></table> mean? These are their 
questions - the people I'm talking about will look at the paragraph you just 
wrote and see complete gibberish. They just want to Insert / Table and press 
Tab to add a row. Tables in Word are hard for people to understand - in 
wikitext or html or anything else? Forget it.

>> _wiki is a collaborative effort_, let the experienced users
do what you can't do and insert _your own invaluable
experience_ as text... <<

I agree - that's the ideal. But it doesn't work that way in the real world. 
If a "wikitext-challenged user" - call him a WCU, clicks Edit to contribute 
and sees:

__NOTOC__
== People ==
{|
!Desc
!Name
|-
|Architect
|Matt H
|}

That WCU is going to click Cancel or Back. They aren't going to add their 
name to that - they have no idea how. Show them on a page how to add a line 
to a table - and they're still not going to do it. Afraid of messing it up. 
They are used to wysiwyg editors, they are not used to revision history and 
the restoration capability of MediaWiki.

- MHart