Comments on: Is wiki markup dead? http://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/is-wiki-markup-dead/ ... in Business Organizations and Information Technologies Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:38:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Leland Scott http://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/is-wiki-markup-dead/comment-page-1/#comment-6933 Leland Scott Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:56:58 +0000 http://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/is-wiki-markup-dead/#comment-6933 You've raised the same question I've been wondering about myself for the last year or so. Having been an evangelist for the wiki concept at my organization, pitching it as an easy way for content owners to manage their stores in an open, accessible manner--thereby furthering knowledge management goals--I've run head-on into the problem of molding wikis to be useful for nontechnical people. I wrote a rather long article about the initial process last year, too, which you may enjoy: "<a href="http://www.musingsfrommars.org/2006/04/web-based-collaborative-editing-twiki-tiddly-or-tikiwiki.html" rel="nofollow">Web-Based Collaborative Editing: Twiki, Tiddly or TikiWiki</a>" It was my belief from the beginning that the wiki would only be useful if it included some kind of rich-text editor, since I worried whether any of these busy people would bother trying to learn wiki syntax. Now I'm replacing the very simple Dojo rich-text editor with the much more full-featured TinyMCE, and I'm wondering if there's anybody here who will want to retain their original wiki syntax (some of the content was entered with wiki syntax). As you know, TinyMCE will garble things like bullet lists, and the users will have to recreate them as HTML constructs. My belief is that wiki syntax was useful before WYSIWYG editors became feasible as a toolset. Now that they are (the last holdout, Safari, has now joined the pack with version 3.0), I can't imagine that anyone would really prefer to write wiki syntax rather than using a WYSIWYG editor. Wiki syntax arose (like all of the other HTML-shorthand syntaxes out there) because typing HTML isn't much fun. But compared with selecting a bullet list item from a toolbar, having to type an asterisk at the beginning of each line isn't great either. And suppose you need a nested list... ? Etc. Of course, I'm removing from TinyMCE all of the controls that can cause trouble: Font coloring, font faces, font sizes, in particular. After all, our style sheet takes care of the style aspects. :-) Cheers, Leland You’ve raised the same question I’ve been wondering about myself for the last year or so. Having been an evangelist for the wiki concept at my organization, pitching it as an easy way for content owners to manage their stores in an open, accessible manner–thereby furthering knowledge management goals–I’ve run head-on into the problem of molding wikis to be useful for nontechnical people. I wrote a rather long article about the initial process last year, too, which you may enjoy: “Web-Based Collaborative Editing: Twiki, Tiddly or TikiWiki”

It was my belief from the beginning that the wiki would only be useful if it included some kind of rich-text editor, since I worried whether any of these busy people would bother trying to learn wiki syntax. Now I’m replacing the very simple Dojo rich-text editor with the much more full-featured TinyMCE, and I’m wondering if there’s anybody here who will want to retain their original wiki syntax (some of the content was entered with wiki syntax). As you know, TinyMCE will garble things like bullet lists, and the users will have to recreate them as HTML constructs.

My belief is that wiki syntax was useful before WYSIWYG editors became feasible as a toolset. Now that they are (the last holdout, Safari, has now joined the pack with version 3.0), I can’t imagine that anyone would really prefer to write wiki syntax rather than using a WYSIWYG editor. Wiki syntax arose (like all of the other HTML-shorthand syntaxes out there) because typing HTML isn’t much fun. But compared with selecting a bullet list item from a toolbar, having to type an asterisk at the beginning of each line isn’t great either. And suppose you need a nested list… ? Etc.

Of course, I’m removing from TinyMCE all of the controls that can cause trouble: Font coloring, font faces, font sizes, in particular. After all, our style sheet takes care of the style aspects. :-)

Cheers,
Leland

]]> By: Allan Pratt http://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/is-wiki-markup-dead/comment-page-1/#comment-5400 Allan Pratt Tue, 03 Apr 2007 23:57:14 +0000 http://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/is-wiki-markup-dead/#comment-5400 I, too, hate WikiMarkup, and see it as a barrier to entry for using wikis among users who don't want to become wiki wonks. But I have looked at a lot of WYSIWYG editors for wikis and I don't like them either. They're fragile and limited and funky and usually ill-supported. Just look at your own footnote: you're telling me the WYSIWYG editor wouldn't let you type "greater-than" or "less-than"?! The standard reply is, "Hey, it's open source, if you don't like it you can fix it or write a better one!" I think that's a cop-out. Wiki WYSIWYG editors are almost universally based on the rich-text editor module built in to modern browsers. That means in addition to each having its own bugs and limitations they all share a set of underlying bugs and limitations. For example, they have no command to create a "Dictionary List" (HTML tags DL and DT) becuase the browser's rich-text editor API doesn't export that feature. Also, the WYSIWYG aspect is limited by the fact that they aren't truly integrated with the wiki: if you use wiki plugins for image control or floating boxes or sidebars or anything else, you have to use specially-formatted text tags - not truly WYSIWYG. The lack of integration with the wiki is even more obvious in some other cases, including a JSPWiki used at my company: links in WYSIWYG pages aren't visible to the wiki's cross-reference generator, making networks of WYSIWYG-edited pages invisible to the "site map" navigation structures. In short, they're just not first-class features of the wiki system with complete, bug-free implementations and full integration. Why? I have some theories. First of all, many wikis originated before the rich-text editing widgets of the browsers existed, so plain text INPUT fields were all they had. Second, I think maybe wiki creators and hard-core users have an attitude: "Real men don't use WYSIWYG." But third and most important, a full-featured, integrated WYSIWYG editor is hard and not fundamentally necessary. When it comes to things that are hard, open source is best suited to building things the community members themselves want (like compilers and Eclipse), not things that are good for non-technical people who don't want to be wiki wonks. It takes paying customers to motivate technical people to write things for non-technical people - that's how you get FrontPage instead of Notepad. Or Quickr, for that matter! I haven't seen WYSIWYG editors get better (or enough better) in the last two years, so I don't think wiki markup is dying very fast. I find that frustrating and sad. I, too, hate WikiMarkup, and see it as a barrier to entry for using wikis among users who don’t want to become wiki wonks. But I have looked at a lot of WYSIWYG editors for wikis and I don’t like them either. They’re fragile and limited and funky and usually ill-supported. Just look at your own footnote: you’re telling me the WYSIWYG editor wouldn’t let you type “greater-than” or “less-than”?! The standard reply is, “Hey, it’s open source, if you don’t like it you can fix it or write a better one!” I think that’s a cop-out.

Wiki WYSIWYG editors are almost universally based on the rich-text editor module built in to modern browsers. That means in addition to each having its own bugs and limitations they all share a set of underlying bugs and limitations. For example, they have no command to create a “Dictionary List” (HTML tags DL and DT) becuase the browser’s rich-text editor API doesn’t export that feature.

Also, the WYSIWYG aspect is limited by the fact that they aren’t truly integrated with the wiki: if you use wiki plugins for image control or floating boxes or sidebars or anything else, you have to use specially-formatted text tags – not truly WYSIWYG.

The lack of integration with the wiki is even more obvious in some other cases, including a JSPWiki used at my company: links in WYSIWYG pages aren’t visible to the wiki’s cross-reference generator, making networks of WYSIWYG-edited pages invisible to the “site map” navigation structures.

In short, they’re just not first-class features of the wiki system with complete, bug-free implementations and full integration.

Why? I have some theories. First of all, many wikis originated before the rich-text editing widgets of the browsers existed, so plain text INPUT fields were all they had. Second, I think maybe wiki creators and hard-core users have an attitude: “Real men don’t use WYSIWYG.”

But third and most important, a full-featured, integrated WYSIWYG editor is hard and not fundamentally necessary. When it comes to things that are hard, open source is best suited to building things the community members themselves want (like compilers and Eclipse), not things that are good for non-technical people who don’t want to be wiki wonks. It takes paying customers to motivate technical people to write things for non-technical people – that’s how you get FrontPage instead of Notepad. Or Quickr, for that matter!

I haven’t seen WYSIWYG editors get better (or enough better) in the last two years, so I don’t think wiki markup is dying very fast. I find that frustrating and sad.

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