Karl Eichwalder wrote in part:
Things like ==...==, ''...'' and the list codes in combination with the line ending restrictions are not that easy to learn. And don't forget the indentations tricks. Once the user gets these cryptic control code, he must learn to use them properly! And the nice thing about wikis is, their is more than one, thus you are force to get used to more than one wiki format ;-)
I think that the list markup is quite intuitive and easier than HTML. Other than that, I'm inclined to agree with you. Still, "''" is shorter than "<em>" (and usually more correct than "<i>"), as well as well known to writers of wikis other than ours, so we should still allow it.
One change that we really need to make in PediaWiki, however, is to not allow things like <span onmouseup="...">. This can be done by explicitly parsing all apparent HTML encountered -- if the parser renders it into HTML exactly the same as the source, then that's no loss, but it should still be parsed.
-- Toby