[WikiEN-l] MediaWiki is getting a new programming language

[Sheldon Rampton]

Stevertigo wrote:

>> (1) No WYSIWYG editing system.
>
> Browsers by limitation are not real "WYSIWIG editing systems," and
> because WP is a website, its nearly entirely dependent on the browser.
> New functionality, regardless of its development, is mostly either
> proprietary or useless unless the W3C deals with it.  One improvement
> that comes to mind is text edit fields that are readable and
> formattable, so the distinction between presentation and editing text
> is blurred - maybe quick shifting between edit and view modes.


Nevertheless, there are a number of WYSIWYG editing technologies that  
people have developed which work with web browsers, such as FCKEditor.  
A number of non-Mediawiki wikis already have WYSIWYG functionality, as  
does Google's Knols project.

I know people who have tried developing WYSIWYG for Mediawiki, and the  
main obstacle they encounter is the wiki markup language, which is too  
idiosyncratic to parse properly and consistently. If Mediawiki used  
some other markup syntax, such as XML or HTML, they'd be able to do  
it. The current syntax was designed with the original intention of  
making it very easy and quick for people to edit articles and add  
formatting such as bold, italic, hyperlinks, etc. However, even a  
lightweight markup language is still a markup language, and WYSIWYG is  
easier for most people, so in this regard Wikipedia has fallen behind  
with regard to state-of-the-art standards for user-friendliness.  
Moreover, the original simplicity of Wikipedia's markup syntax has  
been lost somewhat as new functionality has been added. The whole  
templates mess is an example of this.

If someone were trying to design Wikipedia from scratch today, I think  
they'd be able to come up with a markup syntax that supports WYSIWYG  
very nicely, but of course designing it from scratch is not an option.  
There's too much legacy material that has already been created using  
the existing syntax, so changing it becomes very difficult. Again,  
this is en example of path dependency.

-------------------------------------------

SHELDON RAMPTON
Research director, Center for Media & Democracy
Center for Media & Democracy
520 University Avenue, Suite 227
Madison, WI 53703
phone: 608-260-9713

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