[WikiEN-l] Why we need a good WYSIWYG editor

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 9:23 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Edit completion rate - someone not merely clicking "edit", but
> actually editing and hitting save - goes *way* up. Based on Wikia's
> experience:
>
> http://wikiangela.com/blog/end-of-2009/#comment-26732
> http://twitter.com/joshuaclerner/status/3602544810
>
> Wikitext used to be a lot simpler. Now it's impenetrable computer
> code. This is not good enough.
>
> There are all sorts of reasons why WYSIWYG editing in Mediawiki is a
> Hard Problem. But FCKeditor is really very good these days and I'd
> strongly recommend it for any fresh wikis. Turning it loose on
> existing piles of wikitext such as, ooh, en:wp, is probably a
> different matter.

A half step is possible: Editing with syntax highlighting and hiding
of common blocks (i.e. references collapse down to just the tag unless
you navigate the cursor into them).  This kind of editing is helpful
for new and experienced editors alike, and avoids much of the
complexity and error-proneness of WYSIWYG.  This may not capture the
full usability advantage for newbies, but it would substantially
reduce the "wall of intimidating code" effect, and avoid the pitfalls
of incomplete wysiwyg implementations ("Why cant I edit *that* part?
How come when I edit *this*, half of the page goes away?).

I think that, fundamentally, "WYSIWYG" isn't the right model for
Wikipedia or even wikis in general. What fits our model is "what you
get is what you mean". We really shouldn't want most editors worrying
too much about how the page looks because its important for readers
that the look and feel be very consistent across the site and not
change constantly reflecting the standards of tens of thousand of
distinct authors.

Although WYSIWYG systems *look* simple, they tend to be hideously
complex under the hood, with all kinds of surprising and user
unfriendly behaviours around the edges. They have all the complexity
of an expressive markup system, plus the complexity of trying to hide
the former complexity behind a bunch of inscrutable defaults.  The
initial impression is good, but eventually you end up working against
the computer rather than with it.

Fancy formatting is a specialized skill which may not have much
overlap with the skills required for good content editing. Interfaces
which encourage layout twiddling waste time which could be spent more
productively elsewhere, they reduce consistency which makes life
harder on readers, they deprive layout specialists of their busy work,
etc.

So lets not confuse the usability goals or making editing SIMPLE,
NON-INTIMIDATING, and DISCOVERABLE all of which are very much "wiki"
concepts, with the values of WYSIWYG which encourages increased but
hidden complexity.