* Aryeh Gregor <Simetrical+wikilist(a)gmail.com> [Thu, 24 Sep 2009
15:40:46 -0400]:
Templates and refs are by far the worst offenders, for
sticking tons
of content in the page that doesn't have any obvious relationship to
the actual content. Getting rid of them would be a huge step forward.
But stuff like '''bold''' and ==headings== are also a real
problem.
What's complex in '''bold''' and ==headings== ?
Here when we've
installed the wiki for local "historical records" at the local Russian
university the humanitarians got to understand such things really
quickly. The Ms or PhD in History cannot be that much stupid.. To me it
looks like you are overstating the complexity of the wikitext. But yes,
they are calling technical staff for complex cases, but it happens
_rarely_. Historical records are mostly just plain text with links and
occasional pictures.
Everything unexpected like that is going to increase
the risk that a
new user will get worried he doesn't know what he's doing, and give up
rather than risk breaking something or put effort into figuring out
what to do. If you give *anyone*[1] a WYSIWYG interface, they'll know
how it works, because they're used to it from Word and whatnot.
That's just not true of wikitext, no matter how simple it is once you
*already* understand it.
Maybe, but it would be nice if source wikitext will remain as
aliernative. Anyway, you're the head developers, it's upon you.
Dmitriy