[Mediawiki-l] FCK Editor svn head and MW 1.16b2 - correct venue?

[Robert Cummings]

Steve VanSlyck wrote:
> Take a look at what Wikipedia is currently doing with the vector skin. I'm 
> having no problems, and, really, asking people to do their own markup is 
> not something I see as a great issue. It requries people to engage 
> mentally - at least somewhat - with what they're doing and forces them to 
> use the interface. Every car needs to run reliably, but every car does 
> not need automatic mirrors or A/C.
> 
> I'm not suggesting that luxuries and tools are not warranted, but only that 
> the users really do not require as much hand-holding as we think they do, 
> and if they're insisting on it for something which is really pretty basic 
> then I have to question why. I am a great believer in 
> tools-for-efficiencies, but I also believe that a little bit of work 
> never hurt nobody. Typing ''2,'' '''3,''' or '''''5''''' single quotation 
> marks, or [one] or [[two]] brackets, or even <u>underscoring</u> one's 
> own text really isn't a big deal.
> 
> On tables I agree with you 100%, but for bold, underline, strikeout, 
> italics, and links, well, I think people can - and largely should - do it 
> themselves. I don't want to have to learn Dreamweaver simply to edit a 
> wiki page. And if we're not carefull that's exactly what we'll end up 
> with.

I have to disagree with you given my experience. In one government 
department where MediaWiki was installed we saw the active user base 
spike from about 1000 users to about 8000 users within a month of having 
   enabled FCKeditor. FCKeditor definitely has it's warts, but it very 
closely matches the experience non-technical people have gotten used to 
while using Word or WordPerfect. Leveraging skills people already have 
cuts down on training costs and allows them to be productive almost 
immediately.

Cheers,
Rob.
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