* Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> [Thu, 24
Sep 2009 14:18:17 +1000]:
On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Robert Rohde
<rarohde(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Wikis are supposed to be easy to edit. Maybe
I am misunderstanding
> your intent, but XML-ize everything sounds like an approach that
would
make it
much harder for novice editors to figure out what they are
doing. XML tends to be verbose and complicated when edited by hand,
and rather opaque for people who have no experience with it.
I think the intention
is that newbies will never even see the XML, let
alone be expected to edit it. The XML defines the template, and tells
MediaWiki how to construct the form that the user edits with. You
would only need to edit the XML if you were modifying the template
itself - hardly likely for a newbie.
What if I need to add a simple table to the page? With wikitext that
would take much less of keys to press than using html or xml. Even
simple things, like headers, bolds, italics and images are shorter to
define in wikitext.
I think the intention is that newbies will never even see the XML, let
alone be expected to edit it. The XML defines the table, and tells
MediaWiki how to construct the table editor that the user edits with.
Having said that, I don't see why would XML be necessary. Table and
template markup are well structured and could be used by any editor just
as XML would. Additionally, it is easier to observe diffs with wiki markup.