[Wikipedia-l] A vision for wiki syntax, documented

[Ray Saintonge]

Daniel Mayer wrote (much snipped):

>LDC wrote:
>
>>There's no provision for nested tables. I don't think
>>there's a good enough case for their necessity. Cell 
>>backgrounds and borders can be done with styles.
>>
>
>Well I and many other very hard-working Wikipedians 
>think there is a very real need for nested tables. 
>They are used in each these converted articles;
>organisms (that nested table has a border=0), 
>countries, heads of state, elements, and sub-national 
>entities. And this list doesn't include the many other
>non-project related nested tables.
>
>>>So if http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium 
>>>cannot be replicated pretty much as-is in wikicode
>>>then I for will have a fit (I'm sure many others
>>>will join me). 
>>>
>>Yeah, that nested table is a nuisance. I'll have to
>>think about that.
>>
>
>There are two nested tables; the obvious one in the 
>isotopes section and the navigation nested table in 
>the first cell of the larger table (which in turn has 
>an image embedded in it). Both are necessary to the 
>functioning of the table and are not a "nuisance" at 
>all. 
>
>>>An alternative solution is to only allow HTML 
>>>syntax to be rendered if it is in a table:namespace
>>>page. As I said before, I want to eliminate the complexity,
>>>not just move it around. I want newbies to have some 
>>>chance of being to edit the table as well as the 
>>>prose around it.
>>>
>
>Do you have /any/ idea about how much work would be 
>undone and have to be redone in a diminished format if
>the document as is were implemented? Thousands of 
>pages will be broken and many users, including me, may
>get fed-up with Wikipedia and leave. 
>
>A table is going to be dense and intimidating to 
>nontechnical users no matter what but tables are very 
>useful when it comes to effectively presenting tabular
>data (something we have a lot of). Thus putting this 
>complexity on a separate page seems to be a good 
>compromise between preventing newbies from not being 
>intimidated by hordes of markup and allowing more 
>seasoned users the ability to present tabular data in 
>a table. 
>
>How the page functions for the reader is just as 
>important as how it functions for the writer. And just
>as different writers have different abilities to 
>contribute prose to an article, we have different 
>coders with different abilities to add markup
>to articles. 
>
>We don't dumb down the prose of articles to reach the 
>lowest common denominator reader/writer (except for 
>intro paragraphs) and we should not similarly dumb 
>down the markup just to make things a bit easier for 
>the lowest common denominator coder. 
>
>PS - We've seem to have done fine during the past 2+
>years with tolerating HTML where it makes sense (such
>as tables).
>
I want to put myself on the record as mostly supporting Mav's view on 
this.  I say this as a person whose knowledge of HTML can politely be 
described as "limited"  I have done a little work on some of the tables, 
and that was a learning experience.  If I worked on nested tables I 
didn't realize that I was doing it.  On the [[Fidel Castro]] article I 
tried to figure out how to centre the caption under the picture of him 
hugging the Chinese premier.  I didn't succeed and by default it's still 
left justified, but that's OK; that's consistent with the principle of 
leaving something undone, and someone feeling inspired to make such a 
minor adjustment will do it.  I don't feel bad about my lack of success.  

I've always avoided style sheets.  They give me the feeling of somebody 
trying to force me into his way of presenting things, even when I agree 
that the style in question might be appropriate.  Others will embrace 
style sheets, and that's fine too -- for them!

To me dumbing down means depriving people of their own challenges in 
life, and doing things for them that they should be doing for 
themselves.  Mothers do this all the time when they compulsively pick up 
their children's things; the result is children who never learn to pick 
for themselves - much to the irritation of their eventual spouses.  The 
educational component of Wikipedia is not just about content and the 
process of making that content satisfy NPOV.  The same process can also 
apply to article stucture and markup.  Need the Wiki vs. HTML dynamic be 
any different than the one about American vs. British English.

Most of our edits must be and are with wiki-markup.  That's good.  It 
serves most contributors well.  If there is an option of using 
Wiki-markup or HTML to accomplish the same thing then Wiki-markup  
should definitely be preferred   If someone has used HTML in an article 
where I am working I'll make the change (if I understand it) but I'm not 
going to whine and complain about somebody else's markup choice.  It 
worked.  Having options for how we treat less frequent events gives more 
room for growth.

Eclecticology