[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia images for chemesitry - bonding convention

[lcrocker at nupedia.com]

Chemical structure diagrams seems like something there ought to be a 
specialized free program to generate.  If we standardized on such a 
program, the article source should contain whatever input file to 
that program was used and we can use its output (in PNG, or EPS 
rendered in PNG) in the articles themselves.  I don't think HTML is 
adequate for the task.  We'll need something similar for mathematical 
equations as well at some point (though complex HTML with special 
characters is a possible alternative there).

You Wrote:
>posted to the Wikipedia-l mailing list at: 
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>>> I was trying to show a triple bond on the
>>> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Acetylene page. How is
>>> in normally
>>> shown using ascii text to html markup?
>>
>>There might be something in  extended (ISO) character
>>set that would work,
>>but I'm not terribly familiar with those so far. 
>>
>>A broader question revolves around support for images
>>on Wikipedia--many of
>>us could probably draw diagrams that would enrich the
>>content of pages, like
>>the chemistry-related pages, dramatically.  We could
>>develop them and
>>release them under GDFL terms, and it would seem a
>>shame to limit their
>>availability and redistribution to off-Wiki linking.
>>
>>I mean, after all, dead-tree encyclopedias and even
>>some dictionaries have
>>illustrations.  It's an interesting challenge, working
>>within the confines
>>of a primarily-text medium (Lynx is my primary
>>browser, after all), but at
>>some point, the *pedias should support pictures.0